We sat in a formal board-room table overlooking central Cape Town just before Christmas of 2012. We were a small, enthusiastic bunch of street geeks (some of whom went on to set up Open Streets Cape Town) listening intently as each took turns to answer the question: “so, what do...

Picture from ‘Annual Report of the City Engineer, Cape Town. 1984-1985 We are somewhat obsessed with big infrastructure projects. Whatever form it takes, we love those big, sexy (expensive) infrastructure schemes. And yet, if you take a good look at the places where walking and cycling thrives (think Scandinavia, the...

“Our proposal starts”, said one of the 2017 Foreshore bids “by re-arranging and completing the elevated freeways in a lean and elegant way, thereby resolving the key traffic bottlenecks and improving traffic flows all across the surrounding road network.” ‘Lean’, ‘elegant’ and the resolution of traffic bottlenecks is not text-book...